`No Shell Running` Exception when launching Gnome Tweak Tool (in WSL)

[Melvin-Abraham]

I'm using WSL with Ubuntu 18.04 installed. Since I'm interested in opening GUI in WSL, I installed XMing Server in my Windows Machine and set variable DISPLAY accordingly in my Ubuntu WSL. All the GUI applications launch as expected without any issues. Later, to change the shell theme, I installed gnome-shell along with gnome-tweaks. But as and when I launch gnome-tweaks, I get the following exception:

melvin@xyz:~$ gnome-tweaks
WARNING : Shell not installed or running
WARNING : Shell not running
NoneType: None
WARNING : Error detecting shell
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_group_shell_extensions.py", line 216, in __init__
    raise Exception("Shell not running or DBus service not available")
Exception: Shell not running or DBus service not available

Even my DBus service is working:

melvin@xyz:~$ ps -ef | grep dbus | grep -v grep
melvin      28     1  0 22:56 tty1     00:00:00 dbus-launch --autolaunch=ded84489a5cc43069ac8dbfa9f36e4f1 --binary-syntax --close-stderr
melvin      29     1  0 22:56 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --syslog-only --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session

The other issue is that it does not cause any changes in the shell (may it be fonts, themes, etc.) even after making changes. I tried terminating WSL and starting it again but still, no changes are reflected even though it remembers my previous settings. Please, let me know if there is any way to fix this...

[robertoalvesneto]

I have same problemn on wsl2, but i don't think that's the fault of the tweaks

[rfgamaral]

Same for me, but I'm running WSL2 with WSLg:

❯ gnome-tweaks                
WARNING : Shell not installed or running
WARNING : Shell not running
NoneType: None
WARNING : Error detecting shell
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_group_shell_extensions.py", line 217, in __init__
    raise Exception("Shell not running or DBus service not available")
Exception: Shell not running or DBus service not available
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/app.py", line 30, in do_activate
    self.win = Window(self, model)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweakview.py", line 58, in __init__
    self._model.load_tweaks(self)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweakmodel.py", line 107, in load_tweaks
    mods = __import__("gtweak.tweaks", globals(), locals(), tweak_files, 0)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_group_general.py", line 55, in <module>
    IgnoreLidSwitchTweak(),
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_group_general.py", line 28, in __init__
    GetterSetterSwitchTweak.__init__(self, _("Suspend when laptop lid is closed"), **options)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/widgets.py", line 469, in __init__
    sw.set_active(self.get_active())
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_group_general.py", line 31, in get_active
    return not self._sync_inhibitor()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_group_general.py", line 42, in _sync_inhibitor
    bus = Gio.bus_get_sync(Gio.BusType.SESSION, None)
gi.repository.GLib.Error: g-spawn-exit-error-quark: Error spawning command line “dbus-launch --autolaunch=865dc9ce192c498a99c97b7587ab241f --binary-syntax --close-stderr”: Child process exited with code 1 (1)

Wondering if anyone has a solution for this?